Tag Archives: hate crimes legislation

Break out your checkbooks, because it looks like the president is about to tap the GAY-TM for a Texas-sized withdrawal. At least that’s what we took away from stories published today by The Dallas Morning News and Politico.

The DMN (paid subscription required) reports that Obama isn’t writing off Texas in 2012. In other words, even though it’s pretty unlikely he’ll win a state that he lost by 11 points the last go-round, he wants to raise a lot of money here and force the GOP candidate — whomever it may be — to play some defense:

An Obama fundraiser is scheduled for Tuesday in Austin. It is the first of several such events anticipated over the next year in a state that historically is among the top five sources of campaign cash for both Republicans and Democrats.

Obama forces have kept a staff in the state since the 2008 election. The Organizing for America offices in Austin and Dallas will become the nucleus of the Obama for America campaign in Texas.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that Obama will rely heavily on gay donors in 2012:

The spur for the gay community becoming an anchor for Obama’s reelection fundraising is a series of policy shifts in 2010. After a year of rocky relations and suspicion from Obama’s gay supporters that he wasn’t really committed to their issues, the last year saw a surge in activity. Along with the high-profile repeal of the military ban, Obama’s Justice Department recently refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And the administration has taken smaller steps, like gay partner hospital visits and hate crimes legislation, concrete and important gestures that simply weren’t made during the Bush administration.

“It’s ironic — a year ago there was no constituency more unhappy. There was a sea change,” said David Mixner, a veteran New York gay activist, who said that White House actions during the past year had swayed restive gay donors. “You not only will see a united community that will contribute to Obama, but they will work their asses off.”

The right wing scapegoats LGBTs, sacrificing our rights on their altar of power. The goats have to keep fighting back if we want equality

HARDY HABERMAN | Flagging Left

Land of the free and home of the brave? Maybe not. Just look at all the issues being flogged both in the legislature and in the press. All are to try to stifle the freedom of LGBT people.

• DOMA: The cynically named “Defense of Marriage Act” which has nothing to do with defending marriage and everything to do with denying rights to LGBT couples.

Worse, even though the president said it is unconstitutional, the GOP, lead by House Speaker John Boehner, wants to spend $500,000 of our dollars to defend a bill the Department of Justice sees as indefensible.

• Special Rights for Gays: This is a catch phrase being used again and again by the right wing to somehow try to justify discrimination in just about any way possible.

For example in many states if you are a landlord, you are not allowed to deny someone the right to rent an apartment — but only if they are listed as a protected class. That’s how the law works in this screwy society.

So, if I am a member of a racial minority, a woman or disabled, I can seek legal recourse against the landlord. Because LGBT people are not included in that list in most states, we have no recourse.

In the eyes of the right wing, granting us the same rights as any other minority is “special rights.” Worse still is the fact that we are denied rights in our relationships that other Americans get simply because they are straight.

• Hate Crimes: The right fights tooth and nail to keep LGBT people from being included in hate crimes legislation wherever it is proposed. Just as bad, some have even tried to dissect us and include gays and lesbians while leaving transgender folks out.

To add LGBT people to the list of victims of hate crimes apparently denies the far right their freedom to hate whoever they want.

• Ex-Gay Therapy: This discredited practice still gets funding and support from fundamentalist churches and right-wing organizations that are actively working to “cure” gays and lesbians. Our lives have been compared to the problem with “second-hand smoke” and devalued by rhetoric from the right.

They spread the lie that our sexual orientation is a choice, and therefore something we can change at will.

This list could go on and on, but the point is that for some reason the conservatives are spending huge piles of cash to actively deny us the rights and privileges they enjoy. Why do they spend so much of their time and energy working to take away rights from us?

Politically, it is an easy talking point. The right has found that anti-LGBT rhetoric can whip a crowd into a frenzy faster than talking about real issues. In the world of media image, nothing is as valued by the right as a cheering crowd and a sound bite on TV or radio.

Economically, LGBT issues can make a quick buck for the right wing. Whether it is raising funds to “defeat the gay agenda” or funds to “rescue the poor sinners from the gay lifestyle,” donations flow when the anti-LGBT rhetoric rings out.

And psychologically, it’s an easy hot button. The whole existence of LGBT people makes many heterosexuals nervous. I am not a psychologist, but I would lay odds that for many there are insecurities around their own sexual orientation that drives this.

The mere fact that the “gay panic” defense works in the judicial system as an excuse for assault and murder points to this as an underlying problem.

But I suspect the real reason the right has seized on LGBT rights as their favorite topic is more troubling: It’s what I call the “bogie man” factor.

Fear is a very good motivator. Just look at how we Americans cheerfully gave up our privacy rights after 9/11. We were afraid and we were told giving up our privacy would get us security.

The results are still very much open for debate.

Meanwhile politicians, pundits and clergy have found their available list of “bogie men” dwindling. Back in the 1950s, communists were the enemy and the cause of every ill under the sun. In the ’60s “hippies” were looked on as the root cause of problems.

In the last decade, “terrorists” became the main thing to fear, though it was a thinly disguised version of xenophobia and racism.

Now, one of the only things to fear is us, the LGBTS. We have become the bogie man for the current crop of fear mongers. We are being pointed to as the root of many of societies ills — and that is scapegoating, plain and simple.

Scapegoats are an easy way to explain complex problems, and in a world of 20-second sound bites, they are all too tempting for politicians, pundits and clergy to ignore.

Well, it’s time we goats stopped behaving like sheep and started butting our heads up against the people who would deny us our rights. If we do not continue to push back, we will continue to have our rights sacrificed on the alter of politics. And this goat is not ready for that.

Hardy Haberman is a longtime local LGBT activist and a member of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. His blog is at http://dungeondiary.blogspot.com.

Congresswoman Kay Granger

Change.org has a piece up about how despite his pledge to support gay rights, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman — who came out of the glass closeton Wednesday — has continued to give money to decidedly anti-gay politicians.

One of those anti-gay politicians is Mehlman’s one-time boss, Republican Texas Congresswoman Kay Granger. According to OpenSecrets.org, Mehlman gave $2,400 to Granger in December 2009.

Mehlman served as Granger’s chief of staff in the late 1990s. That’s where Mehlman met Karl Rove, who worked as a campaign consultant for Granger. Of course Mehlman and Rove would both later go on to work for President George W. Bush. (Remarkably, despite all these Texas ties, the state’s major newspapers said very little about Mehlman’s coming out in today’s editions.)

Granger, whose district covers the western half of Tarrant County as well as Wise and Parker counties, has consistently received a zero on LGBT issues in the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard. Most recently, Granger voted against DADT repeal this year and against LGBT-inclusive hate crimes legislation in 2009. Here’s a snippet of Granger’s prior voting record on gay rights from OnTheIssues.org:

• Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. (November 2007)

It’s great that Mehlman has agreed to host a September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group that’s fighting Prop 8 in court. But it’s difficult to even begin to forgive him for all harm he’s inflicted on the LGBT community when he’s continuing to help inflict it by supporting our enemies.